Tim Anderson hit a home run, flipped his bat, was drilled, and was ejected, and White Sox announcer Jason Benetti got upset

Tension in baseball over celebrations has been seemingly amping up over the last few years, but Wednesday saw a particularly strange one. In the Kansas City Royals-Chicago White Sox game, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson hit a home run and launched a mammoth bat flip; in his next at-bat, he was hit by Royals’ pitcher Brad Keller.

That led to Anderson talking to catcher Martin Maldonado, to the benches clearing, to White Sox manager Rick Renteria going after Royals’ manager Ned Yost, to home-plate umpire Joe West physically holding Renteria back and tossing Anderson as well as Keller, and to some criticisms of the reaction from the Royals and West from an unusual source; NBC Sports Chicago White Sox play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti. First, here’s Benetti’s call of the home run, complete with “the ball was majestic, the bat was a javelin”:

Meanwhile, NBC Sports Chicago analyst Scott Podsednik was also quite critical of this (especially West’s ejection of Anderson) after the game (which the White Sox would lose 4-3 in 10 innings), calling it “bananas” and more:

"It's the first time I've ever seen a guy that got hit by a pitch ejected. He didn't throw any punches. He didn't attack anybody" -Scotty Pods

There’s been backlash to beanings and other criticisms of celebrations before, of course, including a “Let the kids play” ad from MLB itself last postseason (which the White Sox were referencing in their home run tweet). But many baseball broadcasters are older and grumpier, and love finding things to criticize in today’sgame, oftenincludingcelebrations. So it’s interesting to hear some of that backlash coming from someone in a broadcast booth.